Disembodied Bones (40 page)

Leonie could see into the hallway and she was
stunned. She’d assumed that it was only the room that duplicated
Monroe Whitechapel’s house. But the hallway was the same. Paneled
with dark wood and illuminated by intermittent gilded light
fixtures, it stretched far and away as it traversed the length of
the house.

There was a gurgling tinny laugh from the
speakers behind her. “Welcome back, Leonie.”

-

Twice four and twenty blackbirds

Sitting in the rain.

I shot and killed a quarter of them.

How many do remain?

None because they all flew off when the others were
shot.

Saturday, July 27th

Each morning I appear

To lie at your feet,

All day I follow

No matter how fast you run,

Yet I nearly perish

In the midday sun.

What am I?

Scott Haskell parked in front of Leonie
Simoneaud’s house with a weary sigh and sat staring at the little
cottage. Another historically significant house, she had put much
effort into restoration. Although it had been added onto in the
fifties, the cottage seemed like an image of the past, only needing
a shining coat of paint to complete its transformation.
The
lawn
, he noted wryly,
needs to be mowed
.

Sue Hewitt was a true blue Buffalo Creek gal
and had touted off the history of the cottage that very morning
while Scott directed a patrol to specifically stop by Leonie’s
house and make sure she was alive and kicking. John Pegram, the
grandson of the man the country was named for, had traded ten mules
and five horses for this lot in the late eighteen hundreds. He gave
the lot to his daughter, who married a Headrick, a nephew of Jason
Headrick, who had donated the Chautauqua properties to Buffalo
Creek. The newly married couple built the cottage and lived in it
for thirty-five years. The Headricks outlived all of their children
and decided to move to California. The cottage went through various
owners and began a gradual decline. Leonie took it on three years
before having seen the diamond in the rough.

“She’s done a great job,” Sue enthused
cheerfully. “She used salvaged wood from a circa 1900 homestead to
restore one of the back rooms. She used salvaged bricks for the
back patio. The Historical Society thinks it’s just peachy. They
want to add it to the annual tour.”

“Wonderful,” Scott murmured saccharinely.
“Everybody loves old shit around here.” He jangled the set of keys
that Dacey had given him. It was true he hadn’t checked the house
himself, but a deputy had walked around the place, pounded on the
doors, and checked all the windows. No bodies were evident. There
wasn’t even a curtain out of place.

In that, it was like Gideon Lily’s place. The
ridge out back of the property sat there as it had done for decades
and more. The cotton fields kept a silent vigil while waiting for
the harvest. There was a farm road that cut right up to the ridge
and on it were lots of tire tracks, mostly from tractors and ATVs.
But Leonie’s car, a Ford Explorer, wasn’t around. It wasn’t in his
barn, in the woods, in the cotton fields, and the deputy out there
hadn’t seen anything at all, much less a grown woman being
kidnapped and hauled off.

“Crap,” Scott said. “Bunch of
cra-diddley-ap.” But what he didn’t want to do was report back to
Dacey Rojas and say that he hadn’t done everything he should have
done. He checked out Gideon Lily. He checked out Lily’s house and
properties. Using binoculars and checking each gully and wash of
the canals, he had also dragged himself over twenty plus acres of
cotton fields looking for something that wasn’t there. Finally, the
final part of his plan was to have a personal look see at Leonie’s
place and make sure everything was in order here.

Chances were strong that Leonie had had
enough publicity and hauled ass for home or for some safe hidey
hole. Chances were even stronger that she’d call Dacey in a few
days and everything would be hunky dory again. Scott would be off
the hook and he could concentrate all of his efforts on finding
Keefe Grant, as was the remainder of the sheriff’s department.

Unless she’s involved
, came Scott’s
demonic inner voice.
Unless she’s been involved all along.
But he’d seen the contrary evidence himself. Leonie had been
talking to Gideon after he’d broken into her house and she had been
afraid of him. Her face had been the color of the ashes. Opening up
the door to her house, Scott had heard Leonie say, “God, all that
fear and emotion tied up into a knot. It’s tied up in your very
being, part of you forever.”

And Gideon Lily had been furious. The
tautness of his shoulders and the way he held himself told Scott
everything he needed to know. Gideon had whipped out, “He’s dead.
Dead. I’ve never ceased to be glad that you killed him. I’m only
sorry I didn’t get the chance first.”

Gideon, or Douglas Trent, had plainly been
speaking about Monroe Whitechapel. Scott had known that he had to
intervene. Gideon hadn’t seemed to be armed, but he was definitely
agitated. When Scott’s mind slipped to the present again he found
himself in front of Leonie’s house, the little cottage, thinking
about tailless black and white cats and dreams that annoyed him.
The key fob with Mickey Mouse’s head was held loosely in his right
hand. He mounted the porch and pounded on the door. He saw movement
out of the corner of his eye and turned his head. A furry shape
slithered through the shrubbery. Green eyes glittered at him
through green leaves and he heard a protesting hiss before the cat
vanished.

There didn’t seem to be anyone home. He
pounded a second time and sighed impatiently. After another wait,
he methodically checked the windows, looking inside each one for
some sign of Leonie. He found nothing.

Using the keys, he let himself in. Scott
opened the door that he had been through only yesterday and sniffed
at the air. No decomposing bodies here. It smelled like jasmine and
thyme. He quickly ascertained that the house was empty. Even
Leonie’s purse was gone. He couldn’t find a wallet or keys in plain
sight. It seemed as though she had simply stepped out for groceries
or a dozen other reasons and wasn’t back. Except that Scott had
briefly stopped at the Gingerbread House and discovered that Erica
was in charge there and she hadn’t heard from or seen Leonie
either. It was the same as when she had spoken to Dacey earlier in
the day.

Scott sighed wearily again. There wasn’t an
ounce of proof to indicate that Leonie had gone anywhere forcibly.
There wasn’t an ounce of proof to indicate that Leonie wasn’t going
to step back inside this house, demanding to know why the sheriff
was standing in her living room. He heard a faint noise, the sound
of something clanking in the kitchen and went to investigate.
Vinegar Tom had used his kitty door and was pawing anxiously at his
food dish. It sat on the floor next to a water bowl and was
polished clean. Leonie had forgotten to feed her cat.

A troublesome frown marred the surface of
Scott’s face. He saw a bag of dry cat food on the counter and
poured a cupful into the bowl. The cat hissed at him and waited for
him to back away before attacking the food bowl like a marauding
herd of wild boars.

When the cat finished the bowl, Scott
refilled it and put fresh water out. Vinegar Tom departed with a
wailing hiss that said volumes about what he thought about
Scott.

Scott locked the house back up and checked
the neighbors. All he found out from them was that Leonie never
neglected her cat, although she did neglect the lawn sometimes. It
made him frown harder and he didn’t like that at all.

•

Late in the evening, Dacey called Scott from
her hospital room. She got him on his cellular phone, which she
happened to have the number of because he’d given it to her months
before. “Did you check?” she said without identifying herself.

“Dacey?”

“How many other aggravated Hispanic women do
you know?”

“That narrows it down considerably,” Scott
said dryly.

“Did you check?” Dacey repeated
impatiently.

“She’s not in her house. I checked inside and
out. There’s no sign of anything wrong. She took her purse and keys
with her.” Scott hesitated and Dacey read into the hesitation.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded.

“Look, Dacey. I went over her house
carefully. No blood on the floor. No chairs tipped over. No ransom
notes. No fresh graves out back. Nothing.”

“Why do I think there’s a ‘but’ coming?”
Dacey asked sarcastically.

“Okay, but her cat wasn’t fed.”

“Her cat wasn’t fed,” she repeated.
“Tom?”

“Her cat wasn’t fed,” he said again. “Leonie
likes her cat, right?”

“Well, yeah. She likes the cat a lot, even
though he came with the house. He’s a gruff old battle axe but he’s
one hell of a good cat and he worships Leonie.” Dacey’s voice
became troubled. “You think something’s wrong because she didn’t
feed her cat.”

“Maybe she went home to visit her mother,”
suggested Scott.

“She would have told me.”

“She was pretty upset about Gideon Lily.”

“Yes, she was, but she would have told
me.”

Scott was quiet for a minute. “Yeah, I
figured she would. I’m going to tell you something. It’s not to be
shared. It’s not for public consumption. You understand?”

“
Si, entiendo
.” Dacey’s tone was
acerbic. “Just tell me.”

“Gideon said someone has her. That’s what
you’ve heard, right?”

“Right.”

“The same someone who took his nephew, the
boy who is missing from Shreveport.”

“Oh, no.” Dacey’s voice was tortured. She was
thinking of her own experiences.

“Gideon thinks he’s in contact with her, but
that something’s wrong.”

“Contact with her?”

“Like he’s psychic too.”

“Oh, but that’s not really…”

“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” Scott laughed
shortly.

“No-o,” Dacey said slowly. “Leonie’s my
friend, Scott. She’s told me a whole lot about her. That’s not so
far-fetched. It isn’t just her who’s like that. It’s her whole
family.”

Scott blinked. He’d heard the stories. They’d
even been repeated recently by the Deputy Chief of Police from
Shreveport, Roosevelt Hemstreet. The people from Twilight Lake were
different. How different was anyone’s guess. They kept to
themselves. Only a few wandered out into the rest of the world.
Ones like Leonie.

Dacey went on. “Except Leonie did something
they didn’t want her to do. She saved Douglas Trent as a child. And
she saved other children as well. She found them and put herself in
a world of hurt because of it. But you have to understand
something, Leonie thought she was all alone. If Douglas or Gideon I
guess thinks he’s in contact with her, well, either he’s a crazy
stalker obsessed with the girl who saved his life. Or…”

“Or he’s telling the truth.” Scott had a hard
time believing Leonie was psychic, much less a whole group of them
being the same way. He had even a harder time believing that Gideon
just happened to be “that way” as well.

“Life is stranger than fiction,” Dacey said
solemnly. “I guess she could be with Elan.”

“Elan Carter,” Scott mused. “Oh, yes. The one
who came with us last Saturday.”

“She’s been dating him for months.”

“I’ll check there.”

“I’ll get you the number and call you back,”
Dacey instructed.

“You sound better,” Scott said gruffly.

“Maybe going home today. Just as soon as a
doctor hauls his skinny butt in here and checks me out.” Dacey was
slyly amused. “Olga’s driving my ex-mother-in-law insane.”

“Good. Don’t eat any more peanuts.”

“Funny. You’re a funny
gringo
.”

“That is always nice to know.” Hey, he
thought. I’m making progress. Big dumb guy to funny
gringo
.
Definitely progress.

There was something niggling in the back of
Scott’s mind while he waited. The last time Leonie had spoken to
him she had specifically asked him about the bloody shirt found in
the barn. Then she had said something about Dacey needing an
ambulance and Scott had instantly forgotten everything but that.
The thought of Dacey being hurt was like shoving a red hot poker
through his gullet and had transcended all else.

But Leonie had asked him who knew about the
shirt in the barn.
Who knew where it had been found beside the
murderer himself?

The deputy investigators had already decided
to withhold the location of the shirt as a potential elimination
tool. They choose various modus operandi of perpetrators in
specific crimes and kept those details to themselves because there
were people who habitually confessed to crimes they hadn’t
committed. There had been a few other details they were holding
back, such as the riddle and the manner in which Olga had been
tied. Other details of the Shreveport boy’s kidnapping were being
withheld by the detectives there. Even Scott wasn’t privy to
those.

Scott thought about it and knew that although
he had been mistaken for a moment, he hadn’t given the information
up in the conversation with Leonie. She had known where the shirt
had been located. So that caused more problematic questions. How
did she know? Was it because Gideon told her or because she was
involved? Or was it something more sinister?

If Leonie was completely innocent of all
wrong-doing, then it had to be Gideon Lily that told her about the
barn, whether it was verbal or “psychically.” Gideon had said, “out
buildings,” in the brief denial Scott had heard while cuffing him,
not the barn. However, and here was where Scott wanted to scratch
his head in irritation, it was possible that she was on to someone
else, someone who really was out to get her, and someone who quite
possibly had gotten her.